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Swatching

I hardly, if ever, just take out yarn and knit "just to knit". Most people, like myself, are very end result driven. We don't want to take the time to see how the yarn plays out on the needles before we cast on, we just want to make that hat, sweater, cowl, (insert knit here), rightthisveryinstant. Or if we do swatch we end up making the teeniest little square and once we feel like we get gauge we're off and running with the sweater. Sadly, many of us who do this later find that the body of our sweater stretched way beyond the point of our liking and all because that 2×2 inch swatch wasn't really good enough.

Swatching is so easy too. It takes only a moment to cast on a few stitches and work a 5 x 5 square. I am laughing as I write this because I preach to my middle school students that the only way to see if a school is the right fit for them is to try it out by spending the day. Now, hmm, wouldn't that just be good advice to follow on a knit level.

I know, like me, maybe you don't have the patience to swatch and to be honest, I only truly get it now because I am swatching for things that don't have a pattern yet. I get why having a nice full blueprint will help any project. It's truly been such a "duh" moment that I'm just having a full blown confessional here.

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5 thoughts on “Swatching”

Do you know about Swatch Diaries http://swatchdiaries.blogspot.com/ ? Reading this blog has made me fall in love with swatches… I’m still not really doing them, but every time I look at her photos, I really WANT to!

Do you ever block your swatches? My cousin does it and keeps a notebook of all her swatches with a log of details about the yarn, needles used, etc. It seems excessive, but also glorious in a nerdy, organizational-freak kind of way!

I swatch (sometimes small swatches like until I feel I get the gauge like you say) and I’ve blocked some swatches, but really, I’m not a huge fan of it… It is so useful though… Discipline discipline!!!